Friday, 3 December 2010

"A key focus of this audit will be the effectiveness of implementation of the Review recommendations and the extent to which additional measures are necessary to deliver the expected outcomes for them."

Perhaps worth reminding the SofS that a stream of words does not necessarily equate to useful information...

UPDATE: This from Captain Deltic...If the SoS is concerned about 'real passengers' , there must be an opposite category of 'unreal' passengers. Does he mean passengers on trains and at stations as opposed to people who are thinking about becoming passengers? Is there a single adjective? I rather like 'putative'.Eye readers can no doubt help.

UPDATE: This from Our International Correspondent...

Real passengers are carbon-based, 80% water, have a valid ticket, and are sometimes invited to stay overnight in trains courtesy of Sir Herbert Walker's wrong-type-of-third-rail legacy.

Unreal passengers are smaller, made by Airfix and you have to cut them off a sprue and paint them.

UPDATE: This from Mr Tuppence Worth...

My commute is provided by one of two TOCs – one being Souter’s route to the capital, the other having moved into the hands of DB earlier this year.

The former have issued an emergency timetable the past two days and their usual website has been replaced with key information for would-be patrons including said timetable. This strategy has enabled them to cope with both fewer staff showing up and reduced rolling stock and network reliability/availability. To all intents and purposes they have kept to their revised plans.

The latter have been a little more optimistic and claimed to be able to run a full service south of the Antonine Wall. Needless to say, they haven’t kept to that for the past two days and made numerous cancellations and curtailments, and been subject to many a delay.

So which is more beneficial to passengers: bold ambition or humble realism?

UPDATE: This from a Lucas Skybanker...

After the pathetic availability of info this week I would have thought all the franchises and whoever it is who controls timetable and running info should make it freely available to developers and re-publishers.